The Book in a Month Dare continues.
Today Brigid and I went to a little place on the corner and wrote together for one of my 90-minute blocks. That’s always fun. In general, that’s how I work. Ninety minute runs, then a break to do something else—be it business or frivolity. Then ninety more. Depending on the day I can get three or four runs in.
On the way back I said I was having a hard time today deciding how to count my words.
As I noted in the first entry, I’m writing totally into the dark. So, I’m learning a lot about my character as we go, and that means I’m doing even more recycling back to earlier material than I usually do. I’d say I’m about 5,000 words into the actual story, so I’ll go with that, I suppose. But words, as any writer who tries to count them, are ephemeral things.
If I say I’m at 5K, that means I’m up 1,000 today. Which is how I’m going to account it.
But I’ve got another 1,500 or 2,000 in story that’s pushing out ahead. And, of course, my brain gave me something new about it as I was going, and I jotted down some more thoughts there that will almost certainly fall into the story. So those are words that I created, but like stand-alone jigsaw puzzle pieces, they don’t really make anything.
Ultimately, it means I made probably 2,500 words today, but since they don’t fit yet, I’m not going to count them as official.
That should me a bigger number in the next day or two.
Shrug.
Not that it really matters. We count words simply because we can, but as Brigid and I agreed on the way home from our writing sprint, what matters is hours focused, and, in the end, stories.
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January Book Totals
Words Today: 1,000
Total Words: 5,000
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Check out the other Dare Folks: